


blood, guts, and angel cake; ITZY

by arrowthroughtheheart



Category: ITZY (Band)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Not K-Pop Idols, Angst, False Accusations, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mentioned ATEEZ Ensemble, Mentioned Choi San, Mentioned Hwang Hyunjin, Mentioned Song Mingi, Murder Mystery, Other Fandoms Not Mentioned in Tags, Ryujin-centered, Shin Ryujin - Freeform, Tags May Change, at the end though - Freeform, implications of the overdosage use of prescribed drugs, itzy - Freeform, listen why tf was that not a tag, oop thats maybe a spoiler, other Kpop groups mentioned - Freeform, well some of them are
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22664494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrowthroughtheheart/pseuds/arrowthroughtheheart
Summary: The time is still running, but the cuffs won't let loose.There's still some time left, but no one lets their enemies walk out for free.Also simply known as, Ryujin gets falsely accused when someone's son died of overdose, drowning in his own car in the middle of a lake and she has no fucking clue how to get out of her situation.
Relationships: Choi Jisu | Lia/Hwang Yeji, Choi Jisu | Lia/Lee Chaeryeong, Everyone/Everyone, Hwang Yeji/Shin Ryujin, Lee Chaeryeong/Shin Ryujin, Lee Chaeryeong/Shin Yuna, Shin Ryujin/Shin Yuna
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	blood, guts, and angel cake; ITZY

**Author's Note:**

> the summary spoiled it to all of you, so just sit tight and wait for me to upload these badbois ok. title taken from teen idle by marina and the diamonds bc that whole album >>>>>>>>>>

Yuna stands still in the far corner, one of her hands perched on the side of her hip in a demanding motion - but for exactly no one to see. Well, there is  _ one  _ person she’s been hoping to guilt trip into taking a break, but that one person isn’t exactly too excited to see or take notes of her existence, so whatever Yuna is doing right now fell face first at being the flattest attempt to get someone away from their job. She sighs, for the umpteenth time this very minute, not that she’s been counting - and even then, the object of her focus does not wither.

“Fuck,” Yuna heard the girl in front of her curse, and she tilts her head to try and find the source of voice only to come eye to eye with Ryujin, cheeks smeared in oil and dust while she slips herself out from underneath the old, crooked car, accompanied with a small but clearly fresh scar with droplets of blood adorning the side of her temple. “I’m fine,” Ryujin deadpans when she notices the younger moving closer to her supposed masterpiece, also known as the old rickety car their landlord had in the basement, one that Ryujin has been trying to fix desperately for the entirety of her highschool years.

“That doesn’t look  _ fine  _ to me, Ryu,” Yuna grimaces, the top of her lips jutting out in mock pity. “You’re coming up with me. We haven’t seen your face in like approximately six hours and Yeji’s been nagging at me to get you out of here just because she doesn’t want to be the one your anger is directed to after I succeed in getting you out of here.”

Ryujin scoffs, still unable to wrap her mind around time and the concept of resting. She’s been doing fine throughout the three years of life they’ve passed together, surviving on little to no sleep when people from here and there come to her about their broken machinery and other shit she likes handling, but these days it’s getting more apparent that her friends. . . housemates? Them. They’ve been more and more worried about her wellbeing, and Ryujin would like to just round it up on her rich as fuck parents are beginning to catch up on her behaviour outside of home and is now paying her housemates to keep their daughter safe, but she knows better than that. 

“You’re awfully confident about succeeding, young lady,” Ryujin wipes the remnants of her dripping blood, careful not to flinch when a small strike of pain comes biting her in the ass for letting her open skin come in contact with dust and oil and whatever the fuck else - but it isn’t like she’s  _ able  _ to flinch since she’s lying on her back, on the ground, beneath a dusty car that would render someone speechless from a sudden asthma attack just by simply looking at its situation.

Ryujin was about to slide back under the car, having paid little to no mind about Yuna and her responsibility to drag  _ her  _ out from the basement, but Yuna beats her from doing so, the younger’s hand reaching out to encircle themselves around Ryujin’s shoulder to pull her the fuck out. “No can do, ma’am, I am so sorry about this but you have left me no choice,” and then Yuna displayed a jaw-dropping performance of the power Ryujin never knew she had before as she fully pulls Ryujin away from the car  _ and  _ the basement.

“You’re not being fair, Shin Yuna- I never knew you’re  _ that  _ strong-”

“Well I’m living in a house filled with people older than me but they all have no fucking clue on how to act like responsible adults.  _ And  _ I’m still in school, so save the complaints because I have a whole list of them to shoot back at you with, okay, sweetie pie?”

Ryujin huffs, annoyed at the overly sweet pet name that she knows will never be used under any other circumstances unless to tease the fuck out of her or if one of them is in real, life-threatening pain and they all need to sympathetically be nice one last time. The latter never happened before, of course, but Ryujin would like to put faith that her housemates  _ will  _ try and save her if the time ever comes that she would be on the floor, dying.

“Holy shit,” Chaeryeong melodiously sang a little rearranged version of a church song she listened to while passing by a church yesterday, the sarcasm made it feel like it’s almost the legit song but a bit altered. Maybe an off-broadway version, if you will - but the fact that she sang it out of nowhere when her eyes landed on Ryujin and she broke off in a cackle not so long after made said girl’s saltiness level peak if not by 200%. “The baby whale made it out of mommy’s belly, everybody! Applause, for Moby Dick’s next generation is here!” Lia raises one of her legs in the air, acting like a ringleader while her eyes still fixed on her phone while her other leg claps on the first leg’s calf as if she’s waiting for the whole nation to applaud.

“Are you saying I’m Moby Dick’s daughter or-” Ryujin frowns, in the middle of washing her hands, and Yeji passes by, silencing her with a hush. “No.  _ Son _ .”

“Are we calling her a whale’s baby because she’s covered in oily substance? Because the oily substance looks black and dirty instead of like. . . a placenta. Unless Moby Dick’s placenta is like. . . made out of oil or some ugly shit,” Chaeryeong pipes in, head raised just enough to judge Ryujin and her messy state of being - the background noises of Lia whooping and cheering non-enthusiastically still very evident and lowkey annoying before she stops, dramatically gasping in response to something Chaeryeong said. “Do not  _ ever  _ call Moby Dick something as controversial as ‘ugly’ ever again!”

“How is he pregnant if he has ‘Dick’ as his family name?” Yuna chimes in, looking over at Ryujin as if she’s responsible over this whole play. The latter only doubled over in laughter when Yuna referenced a whale as if it’s supposed to have a whole ass family name. “Wait, Moby is a he?” Lia lets her phone down, eyebrows knit together in confusion.

“Yeah, bro. A simple google search would tell you that- OW!” Yuna looks at Yeji, fully offended as the older just smacked the side of her neck without warning while she’s in the middle of an important discussion. It is maybe the fact that Yuna just called Lia a ‘bro’, but then again they all do that from time to time as a form of therapy. It’s way too expensive to go to an actual psychologist, all five of them, so calling each other in the middle of the night while they’re too lazy to move from their respectful rooms because being cooped up in their blanket is too nice and referring to each other as ‘bro’ with sobs and sometimes hiccups on a phone call is more than necessary to keep them sane. 

“Follow the fucking script, loser,” Yeji mumbles through gritted teeth at Yuna, who only grins in response to that, quickly getting on her feet to resume the attack-Ryujin movement. “Get the baby shark- whale, I mean. GET THE BABY WHALE TO SAFETY AND CLEAN HER UP!”

“No. No, you are not about to bathe me- I-” Ryujin’s complaints fell unheard as the rest of the insane ones cheered, chanting some cultish shit as Yuna and Chaeryeong halfway raised her up like a sacrifice meant for the Gods when they’re literally just heading towards the bathroom. Is this why they’ve been using Moby Dick references? Because she’s about to be watered down to ultimate hygiene? 

“You all know damn well I can bathe myself!” 

Chaeryeong grins at Yuna, half out of pity and the other half is just praying for the best for Ryujin - who isn’t actually the most fond of water and anything wet. Though their whole friend group can and  _ would  _ get into another argument about if water is wet or not, that’s a topic for another time; a time where they aren’t in a hurry to bathe Ryujin and go to sleep because it’s ass crack in the morning and none of them is awake enough to breathe any second longer without passing out of fatigueness.

“We know,” Yeji is the only one who has a kind enough mindset to reply verbally, petting Ryujin’s hair out of habitual pressure. “We’re just making sure you get inside the bathroom, because  _ that  _ sounds like something you can’t manage to do on your own.”

Lia laughs all by herself when she hears a hiss coming from inside the bathroom, followed by Yuna and Chaeryeong throwing themselves out of the dimly lit room before Ryujin can try and wet their clothes or something cat-like Ryujin usually does when they make her take a long, high-quality bath.

“So,” Chaeryeong approaches her slowly, and Lia looks up from her crouching position slowly, already sensing the shifting atmosphere. “When are we going to have the talk?”

\---

The next day was, if not even more stressful for Yeji, who is waiting patiently by the mailbox. She’s been standing out there since the eerie early morning, the sun barely peeking from the horizon when she stopped her morning jog inside and decided to check the mailbox in case further information that she has been waiting for decidedly came sooner than expected. It didn’t, the mailbox was still empty and cold from the morning dew, so she waited. Shifting from holding herself up with her left leg, and then the other, and then she returns - and it’s almost the break of morning now, the hue all around her blueish and lazy with the absence of warmth that supposedly comes with the sun. But just not yet.

Yeji was called by her mother yesterday, the tension on her shoulders rising as the heavy pressure and guilt crosses her mind once more only by imagining the disappointed and hopeless voice of her mother she had heard, but Yeji responded cheerily as possible. Yesterday, she told her mother that tomorrow, she was promised an answer. 

The young woman had applied to an Entertainment Company nearby -  _ she didn’t mention which one in particular to her mother in hopes of no further detest towards her poor decision-making skills _ \- and Yeji has full confidence on her makeup skills, has been learning about it professionally ever since she barely even saw the unwelcoming gates of puberty since her mother is also a quite well-known makeup artist around the entertainment industry. She was just hoping on luck, personally, since that certain thing has never really been on her side for a long time now, and maybe it just wouldn’t want to start now.

But Yeji is in desperate need for her luck to work out, though, since she can sense her mother’s patience getting thinner and thinner. 

Her housemates, her best friends; are all pretty well-known around the neighborhood, a born and raised ‘rich’ kids who have established enough about themselves to earn the trust of their respectful parents and was let out into the world to cultivate more of their talents all by themselves, supposedly so it’ll feel as raw as if they don’t have the privileges they’re provided with by their parents’ money.

_ Though Yeji disagrees completely, since they’re renting a house almost in the middle of the city with easy access everywhere and connections from their parents if they’re distressed even in the slightest bit. _

Anyways, every single one of her friends had their lives sorted out. Sorted out enough that even their youngest, Shin Yuna, the daughter of a well-known movie producer and graphic designer had her own exhibition only last month, hitting the cover of almost 13 magazines and at least one newspaper; because who even reads newspapers anymore. That time, Yuna was also struggling in balancing her schedules on her acting gigs and the final exams that were all coming up in the same fucking week, so Yeji was impressed on how the younger made it out alive without at least getting  _ one  _ of her limbs torn apart by the buzzing media and all its glam.

Lee Chaeryeong, the one who has it all together. She writes from time to time, refusing to bury her dreams of being an author of a series mind blowing enough that no living, breathing person is ever going to forget for centuries and centuries after she died - which she made a joke about while saying, ‘Doesn’t really matter if it’s so bad that everyone will continue cringing about it or so good that literally everyone can’t close their eyes without remembering it. I just don’t really want to be forgotten,’ which Yeji found sad in the time being, but Chaeryeong never really dwells on her questionable, cryptically sad words. She just says them out of nowhere, and sometimes it’ll catch everyone off guard for a few seconds, even minutes, and then she’ll laugh it off.

Shin Ryujin, not at all blood related to Yuna, but we can never be too sure. Yeji is more than impressed over this kid, so much that she fears it might get into the deep waters of girl-crush or. . . just a crush, period. Ryujin is all over the place, being brought into this world by a family that doesn’t really spend much time in getting to know her or teach her how to socialize like a normal human being at all, sometimes they even forgot to feed her - even though Ryujin’s family is the one who is most economically peaked, compared to any of them. The first time Yeji met her, since it was her parents who started out renting this house for only Ryujin, the latter literally looked like a vampire ready to feed of people’s blood just because she’s that fucking pale and bony. Though Yeji doesn’t really think vampires are supposed to look bony. . . at least not from the maybe incorrect movie references she’s been watching ever since she was a toddler.

But Ryujin was, to say the least, multifunctional. She does everything, fixes everything, cooks almost everything while doing acrobatics on a treadmill - no, she has never done this, but Yeji is sure she can - and she does all that with little to no emotional bond to  _ any  _ of those. So when she was asked by her overly rich and uncaring parents about what she wants to do in life, Ryujin only shrugged. She wanted to be a veterinarian. She wants to care for pets. And not  _ only  _ pets. Exotic pets.

That’s where Ryujin met Yeji, apparently, since Yeji used to have a cute little snake and it appeared as though the poor little thing was dying since it refused to do anything but curl up in a little ball and stare lazily out of its aquarium, all day everyday until Yeji would come home from school and feed it its food. . . mices, usually, but even then it won’t budge. Even though Ryujin helped big time, the little snake still died, sadly, and Ryujin came to its funeral, bought it a real flower to plant on its grave, just outside Yeji’s old place’s room - and Yeji used to stare at the flower everyday until it withered away into a sad little reminder of something that used to exist.

When the flower completely withered away and Yeji grew old of the memory, Ryujin came knocking on her front door and offered her something completely random; ‘I’m lonely at this rented house I’m staying in. Would you mind moving in? There’s too many empty rooms.’

Yeji moved in the week after, and Lia - who told her that her name is Jisoo, Choi Jisoo - was already situated there, as chill and low energy as she still is now, but in the best way possible. Lia hogged the sofa all the time everyday when she’s not going to her cinematography classes, which is rare; she only goes like three to four times a week and it’s only for short moments. But that was almost three years ago, before she got herself a job offer to help shoot a documentary series on how the world is failing us as humans  _ because  _ of humans as an assistant director to her own brother, Choi San - also a well-known name in the movie industry - that has been looking for somebody he has to vibe with, and he doesn’t really vibe with anyone as well as his younger sister. The siblings go around every few months, never staying in one specific location to enlarge the opinions of the people, and Lia told Yeji that she’s been having a lot of fun. It’s tiring, since she enjoys her sleeping hours, normally - but fun.

So Lia comes and goes these days, always coming home with souvenirs and soft little feather kisses to the younger ones and a punch over the shoulder for Yeji, which questioned why she isn’t getting the love she deserved but always replied with a loud cackle as Lia locks herself up in her room again or turns the TV loud enough so she isn’t able to hear Yeji’s questions. 

Now Yeji.

As someone who has been pressured her whole life by none other than her parents and subtly by her asshole older brother, Hyunjin, she’s been making sure that she herself knows that everyone has a different pace in life. Just because she’s surrounded by early bloomers doesn’t mean she’s not normal - late, even. And even though she could be a late bloomer, what’s so wrong with that?

Or so she keeps reminding herself.

The pressure eventually got to her, and she’s been out of her mind trying to figure out what to do and where she would enjoy doing work at, and she’s forced to settle with a dream. One that she’d never even thought about, since makeup isn’t really something she’s overly passionate about, it’s just something she’s able to do. Besides, she used to give Hyunjin the time and energy it took to put him in a beautiful enough make up everytime he goes up on stage and make a couple of teenagers pass out from screaming so loud, back in the days where he had a shitty agency that didn’t really give a fuck about him. And then he got out of it, got even more famous because he turned his worldwide fandom against this company and the boss preferably, and then boom. He has staffs and shit now, he doesn’t need Yeji no more.

Yeji’s eyes follow the birds that flew over her head, as if chasing each other but in reality, she knows how they’re flying calmly in positions, each of them knows their portion and what they’re good for. Yeji wishes for a second that she’s as useful as a bird in a pack, needed and trusted. 

She hears the window sliding open behind her, ready for whatever is about to come from the room upstairs. She hasn’t actually done anything loud enough to wake her neighbors and or landlords, but she flinches either way when a voice calls out her name.

“Oy, Hwang Yeji!”

Something hits the back of her neck, exposed from the fact that she’s wearing a ponytail, and she turns around ready to fight. Lia is looking at her from the opened window, face still puffy here and there from the early hours and or the fact that she only got so little sleep since they tried to pull Ryujin out of the basement, working on the car, until too late at night - and they still had to wait for her until she actually finished bathing, just to be sure.

_ Ah, right.  _ Lia and Chaeryeong wanted to have a talk with the rest of them this morning. The only problem is, of course, the fact that Yuna isn't home yet at the moment, so Yeji doesn't see the art in rushing.  


Yeji sent her a curt nod, in which Lia frowned upon since her morning sight isn’t as good as she wishes for them to be - and turns around one last time, wanting to make sure her letter isn’t just going to appear from thin air. The street is empty, lacking the activity Yeji usually sees this early in the morning when she goes out for groceries, save for one man in the corner of the street, dressed in all black and gigantic glasses; looking her way.

Wait-

Yeji looks behind her, at Lia who is also not-so-secretly looking at the man, most likely not as worried as her because she’s on the second floor and she can’t really see clearly. She opts on sliding the gate closed as fast as she can, not caring if the man is innocent and she’s about to look suspicious as fuck running away like that - but she can’t help it. The man just gave her the largest case of heebie-jeebies ever, and she swears to fuck she doesn’t care about everyone else’s feelings but her own right now. 

She slams the front door shut, the sound of the second floor’s door shutting follow suit as she climbs the steps in a hurry.

_ Shit. Her heartbeat is still racing. _

Yeji’s fingers fumbled with the doorknob for a little while, unable to yank it open until Lia comes to the door and opened it for her, eyebrows knit together in confusion and the need to say something, but the elevator right across their hallway ding-ed and the two of them, paranoid and jittery, slammed the door shut as softly as they can to not notify anyone of their existence.

Yuna is off at school, claiming that her friend offered to accommodate her stay last night in her dormitory since they were in desperate need to finish a mock-up they haven’t been able to touch this entire week; and she hasn’t returned, which left Ryujin and Chaeryeong on the table, looking up from their cereals to inquire an answer about whatever is going on with Yeji an Lia. “Is anything the matter or are you two just. . . out of your minds? As per usual?” Ryujin chuckles, face immediately twisted into something akin to concern when Lia shushes her with an index finger over her own lips, and the former shared a look with Chaeryeong. 

Yeji is still busy peeking outside the peek-hole, although not for long since she turns around right after Ryujin pursed her lip to stay quiet. The older two are fussing among themselves in whispers, and Ryujin looked at them, halfway about to start ridiculing the two. They’ve never been this quiet around each other, and she’s about damn sure they’re just trying to shit on either Ryujin or Chaeryeong.

Chaeryeong shrugs, getting off the high chair to walk over to the dishwasher, the clinking of her cutlery too evident against each other as there’s little to no noise in their living room right now. Ryujin joins her only a beat later, the two of them communicating with their weird telepathic nonsense, heavily judging the mental condition of their eldests.

They fall in tune with each other while talking in hushed voices about the local gossip at their school, judging everyone else and each other while they’re at it, and they pay no attention to the loud but constant humming that their ears are beginning to catch up on. It took Ryujin the quickest to finally realize something is happening, since she’s usually the one to listen very carefully for noises and hums whenever she needs to patch up a machine, even then it was about five minutes after it started.

Ryujin marches to the window Lia looked out from, deeply intrigued. The corner of her mouth twitches as something registered within her, something about how familiar this noise sounds, but a lot smoother. A lot more like it was oiled, and is running like the old times, not hitched and littered with roars and desperate attempts at resuming its liveliness-

“Holy shit, that’s the landlord’s car!” she concludes, not even close enough to the window to slide it open and see whatever the fuck is going on outside. Ryujin turns around and reaches for the door, not before both Yeji and Lia stopped her with their eyes as big as a saucer. “No, no, no, no, Ryujin. You can’t go outside yet.”   
“Why?” she whines, looking here and there for support, but Chaeryeong is currently walking over to the window, not sparing her a single glance. “The landlord’s car is mine as long as I can fix it, and so far as I know there’s literally no one else interested in that goddamn junk for three whole years and it’s suddenly working just fine? What if that’s because of  _ me _ ?”

“Why the fuck are you so interested in that particular car, anyways? Your parents can literally buy you more than necessary- also the amount of time you spent working on that; as you have called it ‘junk’, is no longer healthy, Shin Ryujin, you are staying here,” Yeji chided, pushing the younger’s shoulders back to her seat, though Ryujin is still very much against that, her eyebrows drooping in the faux crave she’s been building about this entire ordeal. “But it’s not even about the car, Yeji. It’s about the accomplishment,” the younger whined even louder, looking up at Yeji like a puppy wagging its tail sadly.

“Please?” the short-haired adds, “I know you know how it feels.”

Lia gasps, looking at Yeji - who is now gritting her teeth, her eyes laced in anger but subdued by a larger fondness. “That’s the lowest fucking low, even for you, miss Shin Ryujin,” Yeji snaps, but there’s no bite in her tone. Ryujin giggles, getting rid of the older’s hands on her shoulders to reach for the now unblocked door. Only then does she look perplexed, looking back at her friends and Chaeryeong, who turned her head away from the window on time to catch Ryujin’s glance.

“Do you feel that?” Ryujin looks around, murmuring something incoherent before she bolted out the door like a maniac, and judging by the sounds of her footsteps; runs down the stairs instead of using the elevator. “Wait, she’s right,” Chaeryeong agrees, her voice going up an octave in anxiety as she hurries toward her two older friends. “The floor is shaking, you two, we need to get the fuck out of here.”

Yeji is split in between trying to feel if the floor is actually shaking - and figuring out that it’s only very lowly vibrating, though the vibrations shouldn’t feel low at all since floors aren’t supposed to do that, maybe - and being very fucking curious about why Ryujin just bolted like that without saying a word if she feels like the building is moving. That could only mean two things, one an earthquake, or Ryujin lacks a whole lot of blood and is now having an episode of low blood pressure or something. Neither of those options could stop Yeji from scolding the younger on why she didn’t notify the others about her condition.

\---

Yuna can’t help but bite her nails, her nerves feel like they’re lit on fire from the exhausting sudden exercise she had to jump into out of nowhere and now her limbs are forced to fold onto each other to not expose her whereabouts to the creepy man she saw from her peripheral vision. Her breathing is ragged, but she silently hopes to the gods she never found a time to pray to that whoever the man is and whether or not he’s been following her this whole time or she just got overly suspicious from staying over at a friend’s house and completely ignoring her housemates’ calls and messages by default because she  _ was  _ too busy last night - whatever the fuck is going on right now will hopefully just be a fever dream. 

She’s been turning from one corner to the other, careful enough to not lead the man back home and allow him to spy on her home and then her friends and neighbors as well, as a domino effect. Her neighbor are four young ladies with their pretty old parents, so bringing home a stalker isn’t really up there on Yuna’s list.

But it’s only a few other turns towards her house, and if she can lose this creepy old dude long enough maybe. . . maybe she can run for it?

It’s not like this is some new occurrence for her, being one of the most wanted heads in town not only because she’s basically the face of the youth these days from how high her net value is - yes, her net value, who gives a fuck about personality these days - but also because her parents are easy targets. They’re rich, they’re the only ones among her circle of friends that actually care about their child, and Yuna is their only child. 

Lia has her brother San - though considering how close the two are Lia would make a much better target of kidnapping since both her parents  _ and  _ her older brother are rich enough to pay however much you want, but not everybody knows that. Yeji is a little bit overshadowed by her brother Hyunjin, who is a famous singer who people would much rather kidnap since they would hit the headline much faster if Hyunjin goes missing instead of Yeji, and little to nobody knows about how Chaeryeong looks like, since she goes under a pseudonym when her writing debut blows up the media for something so extraordinary coming from the minds of someone so young. How did they know Chaeryeong is young, you ask?

The world may never know.

Luckily enough for Yuna and her very fragile and not protected self, she knows the very basics of self-protection. ‘If it’s a dude, kick him in the balls and if it’s a non-dude. . . well there’s very high chances you’re stronger than the non-dude and she might have a dude following up so keep a lookout for that,’ was something Yuna kept repeating to herself over and over again in the course of her entire life, so she might’ve thought she was going to remember them in times like this.

But for fuck’s sake, it’s almost been an hour or more that she’s been crouched behind the thrown out ripped sofa that had stains on it and is quite literally ripped so the cushions are all spilling out and it smells like rotten pizza - or maybe that’s a dead rat - and to top it all off, her legs are dying from crouching for that long. Once Yuna felt that her breathing was leveled and easy, she jumped out of her hiding spot and dashes in the direction she remembers heads toward home. A simple checking behind her shoulder had her assured that no one is eyeing her from secretive, weird angles to try and take shots of her and spread them indecently or is trying to blackmail her into submission. She had someone try to blackmail her, once in her lifetime, and this resulted in more people pitying her instead of being disgusted over what she  _ might’ve  _ done, since the news spread like wildfire back then. It may have been the fact that she was a child back when it happened, but the older you get the more pressure and suspicion you raise out of the people around you.

For a split second, Yuna regrets living her life the way she does.

But the gates of her home sweet home is right in front of her eyes, and she can not wait to just settle in bed and wait patiently for her nerves to calm down before she can tell her friends all about the mishaps she experienced today, and maybe fill them in about how promising her grades are going to be since the mock-up she and her classmate made was just  _ that  _ great. 

Apparently, Yuna needs to perish all those thoughts since the gates of her home were run over by a rusty old car right at the moment she looked up. Yuna watches all of this unfold in front of her with her jaw dropped completely, a choked gasp threatening to fall out of her lips but it fell silent from the shock she’s experiencing. Their gates are white little hand-painted woods the landlord put together once a few months ago after their default gate was burnt from a protest that happened right in front of their house; the perks of living in the middle of a passionately angry city - and it wasn’t supposed to be strong at all against the energy of a roaring car machine, Yuna guesses, but after a while of looking at the rusty old thing her head snaps up.

Isn’t that the car Ryujin has been working on for a while?

The driver is  _ zooming _ past her, and when Yuna said zooming she meant like she can not identify clearly that the driver is someone she knows, but she’s 100% sure that. . .

That. The driver of that car, who ran over the gate of their home and quite possibly did something even worse beforehand, was the creepy man who followed him ever since she stepped away from her friend’s dormitory.

He’s wearing glasses large enough to be swimming glasses, apparently, but they’re dark and the rim was shiny. It was almost transparent, but shiny, but when Yuna saw him and panicked it just looked silver to her. He’s also wearing this black hat you would only see in mafia movies where men who wore them would have thick, pointy moustache and smokes some more thick cigarettes and puff them out of their lips intimidatingly in front of a cowboy or some shit- wait, did Yuna just go down the wrong genre? 

The man is also wearing a mask. Also black, possibly made out of leather because Yuna saw a sheen of light whenever she succeeded in being sly enough to spy him back when she turned around corners and there was a big ass mirror on the side, supposedly for cars so they don’t run against each other but Yuna used it to her advantage once more, and this time not just because she wants to fix her goddamn hair. She gave no fuck about her hair when she ran away from this man, she just wanted to be save, goddamnit. Was he also wearing some type of chains? Yuna has zero to no idea who would ever still think chains around your masks are attractive to the point where you go out with it in the middle of some hot as fuck summer day just to stalk on a little girl and call it a day. 

“Yuna!” a shriek cuts the radio silence in her head and Yuna’s view came back in tune with the present, noticing that whatever she was looking at - in this case maybe the car zooming by - is gone. What still exists, though, is Ryujin running towards her full speed with worry written all over her face, even some tears evident enough clinging on the older’s eyes. “I’m so, so,  _ so  _ glad you’re safe, oh my god-” Ryujin’s train of mumbles are cut short by her tight hug on Yuna’s shoulders. The younger taps on her shoulders, a bit too much information gnawing on her brain to let Ryujin finish sobbing, because aren’t  _ they  _ responsible for that car? What would their landlord say?

“Ryujin, listen, listen! That. . . guy, dude, man whatever the fuck- uhh. . . the man driving the car!” Yuna babbles, not entirely feeling how Ryujin’s embrace around her neck tightened. “He’s the creepy man that followed me!”

Ryujin feels like she has been shocked into awakening by these words in particular, because one, Yuna had a creepy man follow her home and this whole time she was probably avoiding said man and two, did the man followed Yuna or did she accidentally went home in the same exact time this man was planning to come here and steal the fucking car like that?  _ And  _ he managed to turn the car on! Ryujin didn’t even know how the fuck he did it or why it never worked for her but it did for him, but there’s one thing she  _ should  _ know right now. 

“. . .right? And then I hid behind a sofa that had weird stains on them- we can  _ not  _ talk about that right now, but it smelled so weird and it made me almost throw up everytime I sucked in a breath and it was so hard it was like a fucking exercise- oh my god, what happened here?” Yuna pulled Ryujin’s hand, who seems like she’s piecing together all the information she’s been receiving in her head while simultaneously ignoring Yuna’s high-pitched anxious shrieks, but she can’t do so when Yuna is pointing at a hole in the wall only  _ she  _ can explain.

“O-oh yeah,” Ryujin chuckles mirthlessly, “the- the man. He came in to steal the old car and all but he didn’t leave until he made this mark on the wall.” Ryujin turns toward Yeji and Lia, taking note about how Chaeryeong is evidently the only one the man didn’t see because she stayed inside, only peeking out of the window when the whole ordeal happened. “That’s why the ground was shaking,” Ryujin continues, almost shrinking at Yeji’s glare, “I figured as much. That someone was drilling a hole through the wall. I can. . . feel the difference. I- I know not everyone is geeky enough to learn how to differentiate the different sounds of each machine so I’m- I’m sorry I didn’t give you a head’s up that it’s not really life-threatening or something. Makes me feel really shitty.”

The landlord is standing right beside them, looking as stunned but not quite angry as they imagined she would be. Not that she was ever angry with them, but they figured she would be. This mess happened when they were around, and the man ran away with her car, destroyed her gate  _ and  _ drilled a hole through her garage’s wall. She looks pretty composed, though she  _ is  _ standing there looking like she’s heartbroken about something. Yeji quickly turned around to make the rest of them bow apologetically at her.

“Mrs. Song, we are  _ so  _ sorry for all this mess. I promise we’d be responsible of all of this, there’s nothing to worry about-”

Lia looks up at Yeji, then back again to Ryujin, who is bowing repeatedly since she feels the most responsible. Granted, she was the only one to watch it all happen, but the bruise that is starting to bloom underneath her left eye indicated that she did fight for her right. Which reminded her; Ryujin didn’t even know that Yeji and herself saw the same man a few minutes earlier that morning, and he refrained from doing the robbery  _ probably  _ because Yeji was standing around waiting for her letter. But then why proceed on his plan so quickly? And why drill a hole through the fucking wall as if it’s his property?

“No, no, don’t worry,” Mrs. Song sighs, forcing a smile to appear on her face, her once small eyelids grew even smaller. “I’ll just. . . call my son. Try to sort this out. He would usually come back and solve things once I ask him too, he’s just,” she chuckles, awkward, “. . .either way. It’s okay. Me and my son will finish this mess. Now go back upstairs, ladies, alright? I’m sure you have a lot on your shoulders today.”

The way Mrs. Song worded it was weird, and Chaeryeong can’t help but wonder, since she’s the only one who doesn’t exactly need to reply - being hidden inside and all that.

Mrs. Song’s son ended up never coming back home.

**Author's Note:**

> o shit it's happening, kids, it's happening
> 
> come say hi to me on my other social media stuffs!!  
> tumblr: arrowthroughtheheartstuff  
> instagram: arrowthroughtheheart  
> twitter: basekickswingin


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